Visions and Revelations

On Monday at the last Freshley of the 2010-11 school year, we had an awesome night of worship. I had to miss the first half because I had to go to a band concert, but when I walked into the Wesley building, I could immediately tell that God had been moving. And while I was there, a few images came to mind. I'm a little hesitant to call them visions because the way I've always understood visions is that a person sees a vivid picture (either a still picture or a scenario being played out) about something that can be interpreted; but I know that God isn't confined to giving visions according to that specific definition, so I'm going to go ahead and say that I had a couple visions.

Not long after I got there, Kyle, my small group leader, asked if he could pray for me. Of course, I won't turn down prayer, so I said yes, and while he was praying, a couple things he said made me think of something. He prayed that I would continue to receive Christ with childlike faith. Then he thanked God for putting His righteousness on us, clothing us in it. When I heard both of those prayers back-to-back, I imagined a parent putting clothes on a toddler; then I thought about how the kid will eventually grow up and learn to get dressed on his/her own. Now, this vision had a meaning that God interpreted for me. (I think it's more of a revelation than a vision though.) When we are young in our faith, new believers, we simply allow our Father to clothe us in His righteousness, letting that covering be our salvation. Our sinful nature is still there, and sanctification takes time, so while we are spiritually young, we continue to just live life while Jesus' blood covers us and saves us. But as we grow older in our faith, we begin to recognize that our way of living doesn't match up with the way God would have us live—we begin to understand why our heavenly Father puts robes of righteousness on us, so we begin to lay claim to that salvation. Our clothing becomes something we're capable of choosing, so we make a conscious effort to put on the clothes of righteousness, the way of life that looks like the life of someone who has been saved by grace. This doesn't mean that we learn to save ourselves, but it does mean that we learn how to prove, both to ourselves and to the world, that we have been saved. And if people like our style, other people will begin to want to dress like us and put on the robes of righteousness. Christians will seek to live in such a way that nobody can question whether or not they have been saved by grace; and those who have not received salvation will long to receive it, and "everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened" (Matthew 7:8).

This next vision, on the other hand, hasn't been interpreted for me yet, and I'm not even sure there's much to interpret. As I was writing this, I realized that Jacob had a vision of angels climbing a staircase/ladder in Genesis 28:10-22, and the shepherds who saw Jesus in Luke 2:8-20 also saw a multitude of angels praising God. Although God sent a message with the angels in both cases, the vision really had no interpretation. The visions were exactly that: visions of—or sneak peaks into—heaven. So I think that's what my next vision was.

While we were singing "With Everything," by Hillsong, I sat down and closed my eyes to pray, and I pictured Jesus being nailed to the cross. Again, the line "Let hope rise and darkness tremble in Your holy light" was what triggered the vision. (That line triggered another realization that I wrote about here.) Suddenly, I was looking at the scene from Satan's emotional point of view—I still saw everything with my own eyes, but I sensed Satan's fear and was overcome with a feeling of conquering power because my Savior had defeated the enemy, and the devil knew his demise was near.

Anyway, here's the vision: I saw Jesus carrying the cross up the hill to Golgotha, and with every step He took, Satan grew more afraid. Before Jesus was killed, Satan rejoiced in His crucifixion because he thought his victory was complete; but now Satan was having a flashback, and he grew angry with himself, wishing he had never allowed Jesus to be sacrificed for mankind. Finally, Jesus reached the top of the hill, and He was nailed to the cross. The first spike was driven into His right hand (I don't know if that's true or not, but I realized the other day that that's always how I picture it; I think there's a special reason for that, but it might just be because I'm right-handed, and I'm trying too hard to interpret this), and with every strike of the hammer on the nail, I could feel Satan growing more and more anxious, and I heard him scream, "No! Stop! You're going to ruin everything!" Then the left hand was nailed to the cross, and then His feet. As the cross was lifted up and set in place, the atmosphere was that of a coronation ceremony, with the King of kings taking place on His gloriously torturous throne. From His position of human weakness and pain, the Holy Spirit emanated power and majesty from within Him.

Then I saw a large crowd, but I didn't really notice it until quite a while later. I was too focused on the scene in the middle of the circle the crowd had formed: Jesus lifted up on His cross with a figure dressed in a bright white robe in front of Him. This was Satan masquerading as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14), bowing before Jesus Christ, on his knees with his face on the ground. It was dark all around except for Satan's bright white robe, but I saw Jesus clearly in His own light, even though I couldn't make out any recognizable features about Him, but He didn't seem to be glowing at all. I could see Him even though it was dark all around, but I saw Satan only because of his white robe. (Now that I think about it, maybe there is a little bit of interpreting to do with this vision. Satan masquerades as an angel of light, and he tries to condemn us by making us feel guilty for the slightest failures. He makes everything black and white: be perfect or die. Of course, that is the rule, but because Jesus fulfilled the Law and was sacrificed for us, we are no longer required to be perfect in order to be with God. Jesus appeared as an ordinary Man with nothing special about Him. This shows God's ability—and, in fact, His will—to use the ordinary to accomplish the extraordinary. The picture of Satan glowing in white light and Jesus hanging on the cross in a light that makes Him visible, and nothing more, shows that there is no "black and white" because Jesus is all we need to be saved. God uses even our failures to accomplish His will.) Then I finally noticed the crowd around Jesus and Satan, and I saw—actually, I didn't see any faces, but I somehow knew—that it was made up of everyone who was at Freshley that night, and we were singing the climax of "With Everything" (the wordless "oh" part).

This next part was confusing to me. Before this whole vision came to me, my friend Rachel walked by to pray with someone. That excited me because... well, I won't go into much detail, but Rachel will tell you that she's very shy, and seeing her offer to pray for someone was proof that she has grown a lot in Christ and that God is continuing to work in her. So when I saw the next part of the vision, I thought it might have been because I was proud of Rachel and I was just making it up, but then things started taking unexpected turns. Out of the entire crowd, Rachel stepped forward and pulled two other people along with her: my friends Amy, who was on the Port Maria trip with me, and Nina, who is in Redcoats with me and in Rachel's Freshley small group. Then I saw that they had wings: Rachel had typical angel wings, big enough to cover most of her body; Nina had smaller wings, the kind you might imagine on Cupid; and I couldn't see Amy's wings, but I knew they were there. They didn't do anything; they just stood there, as if they were going to do something with Satan on Jesus' command, but the command never came, and they just stood there ready to act. It seemed like they were there to drag Satan away, but, like I said, nothing happened. Then Satan looked up at Jesus and said, "You've won." Then the vision was over. I wanted to see more, but no matter how hard I tried, all I saw was everything I had just seen repeating in my mind.

Now that I have all of this written down, I'm much less doubtful that this was a real vision. Just recounting everything I saw and seeing how it all played out made me realize just how similar my vision was to some of the visions spoken of in the Bible. I just hope that someone can help interpret my visions and revelations and provide new insights. But even if nobody interprets them, I'm grateful for the encouragement God gave me through them.